... His whole sales pitch to me was that I will need to own trust points to stay at these new resorts. I could buy a minimum of 1000 trust points and that would allow my legacy points to be used at the new resorts. ...
They seem to repeat this line frequently. Has anybody ever come across anything in the initial set up docs that even remotely alludes to this?
Here's what I get from the docs I've seen -
There is nothing that says, a) that there is a mechanism for Marriott to magically transform Legacy Points to Trust Points, either as a single transaction or as a perk for purchasing Trust Points, OR b) that Legacy Points can be used to directly reserve Trust intervals that are not moved by Marriott to the DC Exchange Company.
With regard to "a" - they could decide to offer Legacy owners a chance to turn in, permanently, their Week(s) for Trust Points (similar to the buy-back/upgrade program that used to exist with Weeks.) But they don't offer such a thing now, and if they ever do I would imagine that it would be more advantageous for Marriott than it would be for the Weeks owners. That's not to say that some owners might not like the opportunity, it just means that I wouldn't expect a fair trade.
With regard to "b" - The way the set-up exists now, it is not possible for Legacy Points to directly reserve Trust intervals. Those intervals are only available for exchange with Legacy Points when they are moved into the DC Exchange Company. In order for Legacy Points to gain direct access to Trust intervals, a large portion of the governing docs will need to be amended and many of those amendments will require approval from regulatory agencies. I just don't see such a complete overhaul of the DC happening, not when it was developed over a period of years and not when the set-up as is will allow them to expand their management and exchange business.
What is possible with the current set-up, is for Marriott to add to the Trust a completely new property which has never been in the Weeks system, and then not allow any of those intervals to be moved into the DC Exchange Company for access with Legacy Points. That's technically possible. But TUG sentiment is pretty much that Marriott would be hurting itself by doing that because movement among the inventory "buckets" is necessary for the entire set-up to succeed. If enrolled Weeks owners are shut out of Trust intervals they'll be unlikely to convert their Weeks to Legacy Points, which in turn will mean fewer intervals at the existing resorts will become available for Trust Points owners. They're being "sold" on the extensive network of resorts; it wouldn't make sense to deliberately reduce that network. At least, not during this stage of the Destination Club - maybe years down the road when some of the existing resorts become older and maybe not often-requested for exchange.
So that's my take. I'm interested to read what everyone else thinks about how this all works.